For me with addiction, an absolutely necessary tool has been the physical self movement / application of asking myself questions - in writing, on paper -- immediately after / as I've fallen into the point of addiction - while the experience is still fresh, still with me -- not judging myself / the experience - but diving into it with QUESTIONS to understand the nature of who I am in relation to the MOMENT where I made that DECISION. Asking myself the right questions about who I am, what does the experience / addiction mean / represent to me = what are the WORDS I'm really working with, has been THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT when it comes to breaking through and transforming from the IDEA OF CHANGE as = 'it's what I should do because of how I compare myself to others' --- to the SELF CREATION of CHANGE because I have found the actual words that contain the KEYS to giving life to something NEW instead of giving my life to the addiction experience.

On addictions - I have walked several different. I was introduced to a blog and a theory of etymology, about the word addiction.
"a diction of words" - lot's of words. meaning the addiction in itself is a cure/suppression of some story of words that i keep buried beneath the energy/craving/addiction itself. so the addiction in itself is just saying that here lies a story - here lies words. no matter suppressed and denied.

And to keep having it suppressed and denied (something within me i do not want to see) (trauma/drama) i keep using the substance, action, program etc that addicts me to keep me at distance/high from my suppression.

Do you tend to fall into addictive behaviors and experiences as a way to get a momentary escape or thrill or experience of something MORE in order to cope with the things about yourself and your life that you are not satisfied with or feel that you are a victim of but don't know how to change?

In this Hacking Freedom radio episode I am sharing my experience with this point and how I realized that my tendency to go into addictive behaviors and habits in moments of boredom, monotony, and dissatisfaction is indicating that I need to find and develop more ways to give my creative energy expression rather than suppressing my creativity through a momentary buzz of stimulation.

Addiction has a hypnotizing and attractive aspect to it, that's like the voice that says, "Come here, you will be safe and satisfied, you don't have to understand the consequences of what you're doing". For me the hardest part of addictions was the believed comfort I was forsaking for in depth specific investigation which gives no experience like an addiction does. Having been through it, I can tell you it's absolute worth it to keep going deeper, you'll eventually find where you actually stand with things, that's self honesty, and you offer yourself a degree of self respect that all addictions seem to undermine. Addiction is closely related to resistance, and walking the path of least resistance. That there exist resistance in you that's so specific in its application, every time you "want" to stop addiction resistance comes up, is evidence of preprogramming, the sins of the fathers, bad education, and bad upbringing.

You're the key in all of the addiction experience. You make or break that addiction. Therein lies your power.

Sometimes what’s needed is to identify particular traits or behaviors as addictions as well, actions that have become part of our self-definition to such an extent that we stop questioning them and start seeing it all as ‘normal’ while we know that there is in fact an addictive pattern behind it, which usually involves getting a fix of any kind, that means, an experience of any kind.

So for me recently it had to do with first of all being willing to identify something that I ‘seek for’ as an addiction. This means that I decided to upon seeing the consequences of acting out a particular set of behaviors and seeing that my motive behind it is merely experiential, for the sake of getting an experience out of something and the extent to which I can be ‘there all the way’ to do it, is a reason for me to name it or label it as an addiction, because it assists me in identifying it and investigating it as a behavioral pattern that I have believed throughout my life that I have control of/ I’m in control of, and I can be there all the way in doing it and knowing that I should not be doing it by principle, yet still going for it. To me this plain awareness in and while doing something is what became a conflict to me and I can only make sense of it by understanding that this is what it is like to allow myself as my mind that has become physical to become the directive principle in such moments and not deciding to fully stand up in the moment and instead ‘giving into’ the experience, and knowing I’m there all the way, and thinking about the consequences, and knowing what I’ll have to deal with as I am participating in this pattern.

I consider that we always know what we are doing, we conveniently play blind when we can. In my case, I have been fully aware while doing it, so here what’s relevant to me is to redefine the behavioral pattern by principle, and that means to change the nature of what I’ve allowed to be so casual and natural to me to the point where even if I questioned it, I would still go into it because I decided to swipe it throughout my life and not see it as the addictive behavior it’s become where, even if there was a time where I believed I had successfully changed it, I realized that I was merely suppressing it, containing it, treating ‘the habit’ as a bad thing to do therefore containing myself yet not actually investigating it to understand it, find and identify ‘who I am’ all the steps of the way within this behavioral pattern.

And yes, there is such a forsaking, letting go and giving up that must take place in order to settle oneself in relation to an addictive pattern, however to me it is also relevant to remove the idea that I’m missing out, suppressing ‘my nature’ or think that I’ll be somewhat restricting myself. This is where the redefinition process comes in, where I can instead see what kind of determination I was able to bring through to ‘get my fix’ so to speak, what kind of traits I developed in order to ‘get’ what I wanted and redefine those aspects to live them in a supportive way, for me and others. So, as much as we like vilifying addictions, I’m seeing that one also get to do and live certain words that can in fact be supportive, but if we change the purpose and reason to do them and seeing how ‘motivated’ we can become to follow our fix, why not redirecting that attention, focus, drive, creativity and determination to doing something that is supportive, to change the way that we relate to this part of ourselves and decide to let go of merely getting a fix and instead build something that is genuinely integral and standing in self-respect as Kasper mentioned, which I agree on.
So here’s where the decision to stop or break an addiction becomes not only a ‘cutting off’ or ‘letting go’ or ‘giving up’ but I realize that there is and will be such ‘empty hole’ that I now need to substantiate with a redefined way of living in that aspect or part of myself that was previously defined through a certain addictive behavioral pattern.

What will this practically imply? That every time that I see the ‘temptation’ arising to follow through this particular behavior, I have to decide to redefine my relationship to that particular moment, from allowing myself to be moved by the undercurrents of energy and the thrill that it implies to rather deciding to stand in integrity, to cut the energy-drive and redefine it as another expression that can still come through and be expressed yet without seeking the actual ‘fix’ in itself and standing in integrity. And yes this means that I have to change such behavioral pattern from the moment that I see I am ‘planting the seeds’ for it, because I’ve now seen how real they become in a bit by bit process to the point where we keep justifying it and making it as something that is ‘in our control,’ and that’s where self-awareness is required. But at times, not even being aware of it is sufficient.

Unfortunately sometimes facing consequence is the way to wake up and smell the truth of ourselves and it’s not the preferred way but it’s simple action-reaction process that I now decide to embrace, not judge but recognize as something that is causing consequence and therefore it requires my change, my attention and determination to see through it.
And the one way to do it is by writing it out, self forgiving the points, investigating the core and essence of who we are behind what we do as an addiction. So for that the desteni process tools are the way to do it and finally create an anchoring to understand ourselves in the experience and from there be aware of what we are willing to continue doing or not doing once that everything is out on paper/on the screen.
I’ll share any other insights that may come through walking this process, but definitely the redefinition of self after stopping or giving up an addiction is relevant so as to prevent ‘going back at it’ and as Matti has shared, rather focus on self-creation and having the discipline to realign this 'nature' of ourselves to the outcome that we can live with.